Sæll Haukur!
Sælir góðir nemendur!

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> > Good question. Are there any sources for native Nordic

numbering? If there are no sources, then I would look to India for
information about the pre-Judeo-Roman numbering of Indo-Europeans. I
ask anyone who may have information about native Norse numbering to
please post it on Norse_Course. Information about calenders would
also be great.

> The Indian-Arabic numbers arrived in Iceland in the 14th century;

in the well known Hauksbók manuscript (among other things containing
an important copy of Völuspá) there is a short treatise on them.
The beginning is, quoting from memory, like this.

>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> List þessi heitir ALGORISMUS. Hana fundu fyrst indverskir menn ok
> skipuðu með .x. stöfum þeim er svá eru ritnir:
>
> 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Já, "hana fundu fyrst indverskir menn" er alveg rétt.
Yes, "Indians were first to discover her (Algorismus)".

Long after the Indians had already invented zero and algebra (which
was later picked up by the Arabic and Persion invaders of India),
the Romans were still using the old Roman numeral system. After many
centuries of complaints from merchants and mathematicians alike, the
Roman government finally relented and permitted the use of "Arabic"
numbers for "buisness purposes" - long after Christianity had been
forced on all "citizens", barbarian and Roman alike, and dissenters
punished by death. There is something humourous and ironical about
the "holy" and "christian" Roman empire having to adopt these "new"
and "pagan" numerals over a thousand years after their discovery by
the "godless" and "unsaved" pagans of the east. I see no problem
with using the same "dirty" and "pagan" numerals the Indians use -
in fact, they could easily be adoted in 'rýniska' by drawing angular
versions of the same "new" and very "unholy" numerals. The Indian 4,
for instance, is drawn like a curved version of the old "óðal"-rune
turned upside-down - we could just angularize the character. Indian
numerals are very attractive and used in every major Indian language
of today. Many of our ancestors were also Asian immigrants. Nordic
pronouns are like Indian pronouns - why not Nordic numbers also?

Regards,
Konrad.

> The date on the Kensington stone is, quoting from the same memory,
> written with some sort of runic decimal symbols. I think they have
> recently been defended as not out of place.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur